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> a substantially smaller drag Again, this statement assumes the conclusion of the debate. A drag on whom? You assume anything that costs shareholders is a dra

> a substantially smaller drag Again, this statement assumes the conclusion of the debate. A drag on whom? You assume anything that costs shareholders is a drag, but the question we are discussing is just that: how important are the shareholders vis a vis workers and other stakeholders? (Also, shareholders don't live on an island - if society around them doesn't improve it will hurt their company too.) In an economic sense, aggregate output is a poor measure of individual welfare. If you put Bezos and 9 people without homes in a room, the per capita income and wealth would be in the billions, but that does little good for the 9 people. The important economic numbers are individuals'; that's why inequality or distribution measures matter. > When people look at say, Jeff Bezos being worth 160 billion, they think: How is that fair? We should take some of that money and give it to the poor and needy. I don't hear anyone saying that. What they say is that conditions (laws, etc.) that result in massive benefits to only a tiny number of powerful people are bad conditions, and that we should change those laws, etc. so that more people benefit. They also say, we should invest more in the future and in the country as a whole, including in education and healthcare, and that will benefit everyone - rather than that tiny number of people putting more wealth (and power) in their pockets. > Japan is actually exceptionally not productive > [Japan's] GDP per capita is quite high > I would attribute that more to a cultural bent ... GDP per capita is usually the definition of productivity, output per input. Japan's productivity remains exceptional, even though it's growing slowly. We could discuss cultural bents, but we really don't know. We do know that they are exceptionally productive, at a rate over 400% of China's productivity, and Germany is even more productive, as are Northern European countries that, generally speaking, tilt even further from shareholder capitalism.

darawk 8y ago
> Again, this statement assumes the conclusion of the debate. A drag on whom? A drag on productivity. We're talking about productivity. > In an economic sense, aggregate output is a poor measure of individual welfare. If you put Bezos and 9 people without homes in a room, the per capita income and wealth would be in the billions Sure, but that's not the point of measuring productivity. The argument i'm making has two steps: 1. Productivity growth is reduced via these policies. I think the data i've provided offers at least some evidence for that. 2. When you reduce productivity growth, you harm everyone, in the medium to long term. Yes, if you take all the money and redistribute it equally today, more people will be better off than they were. You will increase the utility points of the universe. For today. But in 20 years? The society that didn't redistribute all the wealth will be better off. > I don't hear anyone saying that. What they say is that conditions (laws, etc.) that result in massive benefits to only a tiny number of powerful people are bad conditions, and that we should change those laws, etc. so that more people benefit. Those are equivalent statements, except that the version you're suggesting is just a bit worse for everyone than actually just taking his money and redistributing it. The policies you're proposing will actually stunt growth, long term. Stunting growth long term harms everyone, for the rest of time. > GDP per capita is usually the definition of productivity, output per input. Japan's productivity remains exceptional, even though it's growing slowly Ya, but it's growth that creates progress. Improving productivity is how we lifted billions of people out of poverty over the last century. We didn't do it by redistributing wealth. We didn't do it by slowing down growth. We did it by making a pie so big that even if you only have a tiny slice, you're still doing pretty well. And the bigger the pie gets, the smaller the slice you'll need to have a very comfortable life. This is the promise of capitalism. Think about all the things that used to be the purview of the rich alone. Transportation, safety, healthcare, clean food, clean water, shelter, banking, access to information and education. All of that is the result of compound economic growth caused and created by capitalism. > We do know that they are exceptionally productive, at a rate over 400% of China's productivity, and Germany is even more productive, as are Northern European countries that, generally speaking, tilt even further from shareholder capitalism. Again, growth is the only thing that matters. If you want to predict civil unrest, social problems, revolutions and unhappiness generally, you look at the derivative of productivity, not productivity itself.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  I'm very familiar with these arguments - I used to make them myself. But I've come to believe that reality is much more complex than the theory, and that that particular theory is not coincidentally self-serving to the wealthy and powerful. The foundation of Reagan's 'trickle-down economics' in the 1980s, to badly generalize, was to make the rich and powerful richer and more powerful, and then everyone else would benefit - it's probably not a coincidence that REagan's and the Republican's primary supporters were the primary beneficiaries. The result was predictable: The rich got richer. The secondary benefits never occurred; few others have benefited in the last 30 years. I think (and I may be wrong) you are assuming that "captialism" == the rules of the last 30ish years, that they are somehow optimal for productivity, and that therefore any change to them must yield something suboptimal. But they are just some options among very many (including the options before Reagan) and much of the U.S. economy isn't technically 'capitalism' anyway. > We did it by making a pie so big that even if you only have a tiny slice That's not especially accurate; income distribution inequality was much lower for most of U.S. history than it is today. Also, if you look at the actual history, the U.S. was much more highly regulated, had much higher tax rates, and provided more benefits to its citizens (such as better education) during the period of its highest growth, roughly the 50s and 60s. The U.S. constantly expanded services to its citizens throughout the 20th century.
  - darawk 8y ago
    > I think (and I may be wrong) you are assuming that "captialism" == the rules of the last 30ish years, that they are somehow optimal for productivity, and that therefore any change to them must yield something suboptimal. But they are just some options among very many (including the options before Reagan) and much of the U.S. economy isn't technically 'capitalism' anyway. I'm defining capitalism as essentially private property rights + contract enforcement. I'm not a libertarian absolutist, I think there's room for quite a few regulations. But i'm, in general, skeptical of them by default. I think that externality pricing (e.g. if you damage public property such as the environment, you ought to pay at least enough to fix it) is extremely important, and I think that the way 'natural property' (such as land) has been distributed is highly unequitable, and we'd be much better off with a [Land Value Tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax) to replace most of the forms of taxation that we have now as a way of at least partially offsetting that inequitability, while maintaining ideal economic efficiency. I'm also a believer in a strong social safety net, but one designed from an economic perspective, to minimize efficiency loss. I'm no expert, but I think it ought to have essentially two components: raise the minimum standard of living (via either a universal basic income, or a government jobs guarantee) and some form of "rare high cost variance smoothing insurance" (mostly thinking of health here, but other things too, potentially). That is, health insurance that pays only for extreme (cost-wise) events. Healthcare is a complicated issue though due to the fact that incentives get weird and misaligned with cost reduction in various places (it may be worthwhile to make checkups free, because it will reduce the probability of say, cancer progressing to a later stage where care will be more expensive, but if people pay for it themselves, they won't go as often, and it'll end up costing society more). So, I accept that there are quite good arguments for fully socialized healthcare, but I think there are also strong arguments on the other side, though they usually aren't very well articulated in the common media. > That's not especially accurate; income distribution inequality was much lower for most of U.S. history than it is today. Also, if you look at the actual history, the U.S. was much more highly regulated, had much higher tax rates, and provided more benefits to its citizens (such as better education) during the period of its highest growth, roughly the 50s and 60s. The U.S. constantly expanded services to its citizens throughout the 20th century. I'm not sure how that conflicts with the statement of mine that you quoted. We absolutely achieved what we have today by growing the economy. You are right that we also provided many social services. And i'm all for that. I'm not really sure why people focus so much on inequality. Inequality can increase simply because the top goes up. Does it make you worse off if someone else is richer? When Jeff Bezos' fortune increases by 10 billion, are you and I poorer? I suppose in some emotional sense, maybe, but that doesn't really seem relevant to policy. I see no problem with inequality, per se. It'd be easy to eliminate inequality: kill the rich and burn their money. But would anyone be better off for it?

darawk 8y ago

> Again, this statement assumes the conclusion of the debate. A drag on whom? A drag on productivity. We're talking about productivity. > In an economic sense, aggregate output is a poor measure of individual welfare. If you put Bezos and 9 people without homes in a room, the per capita income and wealth would be in the billions Sure, but that's not the point of measuring productivity. The argument i'm making has two steps: 1. Productivity growth is reduced via these policies. I think the data i've provided offers at least some evidence for that. 2. When you reduce productivity growth, you harm everyone, in the medium to long term. Yes, if you take all the money and redistribute it equally today, more people will be better off than they were. You will increase the utility points of the universe. For today. But in 20 years? The society that didn't redistribute all the wealth will be better off. > I don't hear anyone saying that. What they say is that conditions (laws, etc.) that result in massive benefits to only a tiny number of powerful people are bad conditions, and that we should change those laws, etc. so that more people benefit. Those are equivalent statements, except that the version you're suggesting is just a bit worse for everyone than actually just taking his money and redistributing it. The policies you're proposing will actually stunt growth, long term. Stunting growth long term harms everyone, for the rest of time. > GDP per capita is usually the definition of productivity, output per input. Japan's productivity remains exceptional, even though it's growing slowly Ya, but it's growth that creates progress. Improving productivity is how we lifted billions of people out of poverty over the last century. We didn't do it by redistributing wealth. We didn't do it by slowing down growth. We did it by making a pie so big that even if you only have a tiny slice, you're still doing pretty well. And the bigger the pie gets, the smaller the slice you'll need to have a very comfortable life. This is the promise of capitalism. Think about all the things that used to be the purview of the rich alone. Transportation, safety, healthcare, clean food, clean water, shelter, banking, access to information and education. All of that is the result of compound economic growth caused and created by capitalism. > We do know that they are exceptionally productive, at a rate over 400% of China's productivity, and Germany is even more productive, as are Northern European countries that, generally speaking, tilt even further from shareholder capitalism. Again, growth is the only thing that matters. If you want to predict civil unrest, social problems, revolutions and unhappiness generally, you look at the derivative of productivity, not productivity itself.

forapurpose 8y ago
I'm very familiar with these arguments - I used to make them myself. But I've come to believe that reality is much more complex than the theory, and that that particular theory is not coincidentally self-serving to the wealthy and powerful. The foundation of Reagan's 'trickle-down economics' in the 1980s, to badly generalize, was to make the rich and powerful richer and more powerful, and then everyone else would benefit - it's probably not a coincidence that REagan's and the Republican's primary supporters were the primary beneficiaries. The result was predictable: The rich got richer. The secondary benefits never occurred; few others have benefited in the last 30 years. I think (and I may be wrong) you are assuming that "captialism" == the rules of the last 30ish years, that they are somehow optimal for productivity, and that therefore any change to them must yield something suboptimal. But they are just some options among very many (including the options before Reagan) and much of the U.S. economy isn't technically 'capitalism' anyway. > We did it by making a pie so big that even if you only have a tiny slice That's not especially accurate; income distribution inequality was much lower for most of U.S. history than it is today. Also, if you look at the actual history, the U.S. was much more highly regulated, had much higher tax rates, and provided more benefits to its citizens (such as better education) during the period of its highest growth, roughly the 50s and 60s. The U.S. constantly expanded services to its citizens throughout the 20th century.
- darawk 8y ago
  > I think (and I may be wrong) you are assuming that "captialism" == the rules of the last 30ish years, that they are somehow optimal for productivity, and that therefore any change to them must yield something suboptimal. But they are just some options among very many (including the options before Reagan) and much of the U.S. economy isn't technically 'capitalism' anyway. I'm defining capitalism as essentially private property rights + contract enforcement. I'm not a libertarian absolutist, I think there's room for quite a few regulations. But i'm, in general, skeptical of them by default. I think that externality pricing (e.g. if you damage public property such as the environment, you ought to pay at least enough to fix it) is extremely important, and I think that the way 'natural property' (such as land) has been distributed is highly unequitable, and we'd be much better off with a [Land Value Tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax) to replace most of the forms of taxation that we have now as a way of at least partially offsetting that inequitability, while maintaining ideal economic efficiency. I'm also a believer in a strong social safety net, but one designed from an economic perspective, to minimize efficiency loss. I'm no expert, but I think it ought to have essentially two components: raise the minimum standard of living (via either a universal basic income, or a government jobs guarantee) and some form of "rare high cost variance smoothing insurance" (mostly thinking of health here, but other things too, potentially). That is, health insurance that pays only for extreme (cost-wise) events. Healthcare is a complicated issue though due to the fact that incentives get weird and misaligned with cost reduction in various places (it may be worthwhile to make checkups free, because it will reduce the probability of say, cancer progressing to a later stage where care will be more expensive, but if people pay for it themselves, they won't go as often, and it'll end up costing society more). So, I accept that there are quite good arguments for fully socialized healthcare, but I think there are also strong arguments on the other side, though they usually aren't very well articulated in the common media. > That's not especially accurate; income distribution inequality was much lower for most of U.S. history than it is today. Also, if you look at the actual history, the U.S. was much more highly regulated, had much higher tax rates, and provided more benefits to its citizens (such as better education) during the period of its highest growth, roughly the 50s and 60s. The U.S. constantly expanded services to its citizens throughout the 20th century. I'm not sure how that conflicts with the statement of mine that you quoted. We absolutely achieved what we have today by growing the economy. You are right that we also provided many social services. And i'm all for that. I'm not really sure why people focus so much on inequality. Inequality can increase simply because the top goes up. Does it make you worse off if someone else is richer? When Jeff Bezos' fortune increases by 10 billion, are you and I poorer? I suppose in some emotional sense, maybe, but that doesn't really seem relevant to policy. I see no problem with inequality, per se. It'd be easy to eliminate inequality: kill the rich and burn their money. But would anyone be better off for it?